The present invention generally relates to recommendation engines and more specifically to techniques for providing recommendations for content not owned by a service provider.
Recommendations when an item, such as a video, is purchased or downloaded are very useful. For example, Amazon provides recommendations for other books or videos when a book is purchased on its website. This provides a user with personal selections that may be relevant to the purchased item. The quality of the recommendations is important in that if a user is interested in the recommendations, the user may purchase a recommended item. However, if the user does not like the recommendations, the user may not purchase the item.
Typically, recommendations are provided for content that is owned by an entity, such as an online bookstore. For example, the online bookstore is selling the books or videos and thus understands the content of the books and videos. Therefore, the online bookstore can generate recommendations based on that knowledge of the content and other factors, such as a user's buying preferences. These recommendations are based on content that the entity knows about.
With the number of services and content provided by the Internet and other networks, it is possible for a service provider to provide the content that is not owned by them. For example, service providers may aggregate content from other sources and provide the content to users. Because the typical recommendation engines rely on knowledge of the content, it is difficult to provide recommendations when the content is owned by another entity. Additionally, some content may be dynamically changing and/or live content that makes it difficult for the entity to know what the content includes. Thus, the entity may not be able to provide recommendations for the changing or live content.